Taking care of the Tropicana Stingrays

And the players were not the only Rays who needed somewhere else to go in that whole predicament. The actual stingrays, the stingray tank is such an iconic part of the Tropicana Field experience. But what happened to those stingrays? They've actually been a part of the ballpark experience since 2006. And there's a whole team working behind the scenes to care for them. So what I want to do right now is I want to welcome into the conversation Christy Barrett with the Florida Aquarium. She is one of the curators, and she is going to answer all of our questions that we have about the stingrays, who takes care of them in the offseason, what this effort looks like. Christy, thank you so much for joining us. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I am good. You know, it's funny. My producer and I were joking that we don't really know who cooked this up, But we were talking, my goodness, the Tampa Bay Rays have been through so much. We know the stingrays had to get moved from the trop when it was damaged. But I mean, baseball season only goes for so long. So we're like, what happens to the stingrays in the post season? How do you move a stingray? Lots to cover here. But I wanna backtrack from when the trop was damaged. Cuz I know you guys provided us video of getting them out of there, returning them when everything was fixed. Can you walk us through what that timeline was like for the Florida Aquarium? Well, yeah, we were really lucky after the storm. Obviously, we all knew about the damage to Tropicana Field. And we were lucky to have a security guard there that was updating us in real time, letting us know the rays were okay. They actually let us come in about two days after the storm and just do some checkups on the rays, add some oxygen to their water so they could breathe okay. And then it was another two days before the building was safe enough for safe enough for us to bring our whole team there to move the rays out. And if there was no power, normally we use an elevator, we were having to be very creative with how we got them out of there and how we got them back to the main aquarium, something I'll never forget. Yeah, and I know they had a few stops before coming back home. So walk me through this Florida Aquarium Tropicana Field collaboration. So they actually came straight from Tropicana Field after the storm, they came straight back to the main campus. Typically in years past, we would keep them at the Manatee Viewing Center in the off season. But the Manatee Viewing Center was devastated by the hurricane as well. So we actually had to get really creative and set up a holding spot for them back here, which is where they were while we repaired both habitats. And in that time period, we were able to evaluate our program and we decided that we're not gonna move the Rays back and forth anymore. So the Rays that are at Tropicana Field right now are gonna be there in the off season and we're gonna continue to go out and take care of them the same way we do when the baseball is being played. I love that so much and the video that we're showing, I mean to see the Stingray mascot, and all the mascots, even Raymond, everybody there, DJ Kitty gets so excited when they came back. This is, to my understanding, the only ballpark in the country that has live stingrays, am I right? Definitely right, and the way the people at Tropicana Field, the way they welcomed us back. I mean, I could tear up right now talking about it, it was such an amazing experience. Everyone over there loves those animals so much. And the day that we brought the seven rays back that went through the storm there was one of the coolest days in my career. And what's really cool too is the video of transporting stingrays. I mean, how, I have so many questions, is it basically a aquarium truck that does this? We actually rent a truck and we outfit it with a couple of tanks in the back. And we transport them and you see the little rolling bins, we transport them from the truck in the rolling bins. They have to stay in water. They need oxygen throughout that whole process. So it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to drive stingrays over the Skyway Bridge, not a lot of people can say they do that. I was gonna say very casual, just taking the stingrays real quickly for a road trip. I understand, talk to me about feeding them. Do I see here in my notes that they are trained to follow a target at feeding time? How does that work? And what do stingrays eat? So stingrays eat a variety of fish, crab, shrimp, crustaceans, but yeah, we were able to train them to a target. So when we get in the water with them, we have an orange circle, we actually wear it on our leg. And they know when they see that target that it's time to come over and get food. We feed them every day, seven days a week, sometimes twice a day if we're out there for a long enough period of time. But it's nice to have that target on when you're feeding, cuz they know it's feeding time. Cuz we also have to get in to clean and do other things in the habitat. And when the target's not out, they know it's not time to eat. Yeah, yeah, and I mean, this is also a touch tank. For any fans who may have not tried before, maybe done it wrong, is there a proper way to touch the stingrays? Sure, we ask people to use two fingers and that's only to just be as gentle as possible with them. We ask you to only touch them on their backs, tips of their wings, avoid their eyes. We just like people to be very gentle with them and treat them with respect when they're touching. I love it. This year, I know you said they are staying at the Trop during the off season. So what is one thing you just wish every fan understood about these animals beyond getting to touch them at games? I wish every fan would understand how important it is to keep their environment clean and healthy and to do their part every day for the environment. To protect animals like them and all the other animals that are out in the ocean, but these animals are particularly adorable. So we hope that people resonate with them and they pull at their heartstrings a little bit. I know, do you ever have to, this is just me walking around thinking as a fan, when you guys clean the tank, do you have to clean out popcorn and people's game day trash out of there? I really hope not. at Tropicana Field are really great about not throwing trash in there. And we have a group of fan hosts that actually hang out up at the Habitat when it's open. So if anything like that starts to happen, they're like our raised security guards. If anything like that starts to happen, those people, that's taken care of very, very quickly. So it's honestly not a problem at all. What a cool job. Lots going on at the Florida Aquarium. I know you guys are hosting Guppy Ween. Am I seeing that? Talk to me, aside from stingrays, what you guys are doing on a daily basis and have coming up. Yeah, Guppy Ween is going to be really exciting. So there's going to be two weekends where you can come and actually trick-or-treat here at the aquarium. We like to do the not-so-scary Halloween. So, you know, bring out the kiddos that might be a little scared of some of the bigger attractions in the area. And you'll get to see some really cool live animal ambassadors. and there's some really cool crafts and different things you can do throughout the day. Look, and Raymond's doing it too. I love that so much. Letting Raymond loose in the Florida Aquarium, what could go wrong? Christy, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you. We appreciate the inside look at how this is taking care of all the stingray love that the rays get, both in the tank and then, of course, go rays, our team trying to hold it down in Cleveland. Go Rays. Go Rays. All right, Christy, take care. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you.